Eastman F to S

[Woody Sound]

No, it's not some new kind of sex change.

I noticed a recent full-body Eastman archtop with S holes instead of F holes. I wonder if more archtop models will have them(?)

[Oscar67]

Same as in their Romeo thinline archtop.

[mr. beaumont]

No, it's not some new kind of sex change.

I noticed a recent full-body Eastman archtop with S holes instead of F holes. I wonder if more archtop models with have them(?)

Thats a very attractive guitar...I like the almost flat cutaway too.

[nyc chaz]

Eastman has also come out with an archtop with torrefied wood this year,looking forward to hear what it sounds like.

[sgosnell]

That style sound hole has been in use for a long time, it's not new. Jimmy D'Aquisto used the same style. Here's a photo from a Christie's auction

[Sam Sherry]

“Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”
-- Variously attributed to Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky and Steve Jobs among others

John D'Angelico Excel, circa 1937:

[Woody Sound]

Thats a very attractive guitar...I like the almost flat cutaway too.

Many of the carved Eastman AR-804's, 805's, & 905's have that.

[jim232777]

Several pics on the Eastman site have that new (to them) shape. Seems to be the newer pictures... The torrefied AR905ce @nyc chaz mentioned is an example. A couple or 3 years ago they switched their 805ce and 810ce models from floating pickups to top-mounted; the images for those also have the s-shape. A Reverb search finds a fairly small number like that as well. So yes, maybe they're changing their design.

[RJVB]

Just how stylised does an 'f' has to be to become an 's?

Anyone who's seen a fufficient fhare of old printed texts will have noticed that they ufed "f" and "s" more or less interchangeably ...

Now the real queftion is: do thefe flur more than thofe with propre f-holes?